


When and Where to Strike

by greenripper (OracleGlass)



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/pseuds/greenripper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophie finds herself reluctantly complying with an order to take classes in self-defense from Eliot. Along the way, she finds out why fighting as foreplay is such a popular cliche.</p><p>Title taken from Guster's The Boxer.</p><p>Neither Sophie nor Eliot belongs to me. If they did, I'd make them do this all the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When and Where to Strike

It was only through sheer force of will that she wasn't grinding her teeth. Sophie was not accustomed to Nate laying down the law with such dictatorial splendor - at least, not often with her...ok, this was totally the sort of "commandment from on high" thing he usually pulled. But the fact that he had successfully bullied her into this ridiculous exercise was one more reason she was itching to reprogram him to run out and steal her a diamond every time she sneezed. She knew, with the small logical part of her brain that hadn't been overtaken by rage, that the gigantic fuckup in Atlanta has to be the reason for all this kerfuffle - for Nate requiring Eliot to train her and Hardison to better defend themselves. Sophie is not listening to that small logical part. Instead, she is in this small, vaguely smelly room wearing yoga pants and, god help her, a sports bra, preparing to be made to look ridiculous. She is wearing a ponytail. Nate will be made to pay.

Hardison has managed to evade his lessons by the simple method of vanishing into thin air. He and Eliot may happily play at cons-on-the-run, but Hardison is smart enough to know that being trapped in a room with Eliot, learning how to take a punch, is not his idea of a good time. Parker is gone as well, which means the two of them are probably dangling from the side of a skyscraper, snogging each other like crazed weasels. Sophie herself had pondered hiding for a few days, but, knowing Eliot would have caught her sooner or later, she had decided to meet her fate with some small amount of decorum.

"Hey, Soph. Can't find Hardison. Just you 'n me today." Sophie jumps. Eliot is at the back of the room and she didn't even hear him come in. The man is part cat, just like Parker. He's a different Eliot than she's used to seeing on a daily basis, which is interesting. No work boots, flannel shirt, or slouchy jeans to be seen. Instead, he's wearing those loose white pants one sees in karate movies, and bare feet. He's also wearing an ancient t-shirt that'd been washed so many times it's as transparent as tissue, which wasn't a bad thing because, let's face it - the man had a great body and Sophie had never been prudish about her admiration of the male form. Also, those white pants are doing fantastic things for his derrière.

He's not paying any attention to her. Instead, he's going through stretches - back, shoulders, arms, then something where he's bent over with his cheek on his shins so he's folded up like a jackknife. It's not until that precise moment that Sophie realizes her mind has gone to a very bad place - a place beyond simple ogling, a place she's not supposed to think about with Eliot, although why that's a rule she doesn't know, because it's not like she's doing anything with anybody else, particularly not Nate, who is going to pay for putting her in this position. But my. She never realized Eliot was quite that...flexible.

She distracts herself by standing on one foot, pulling her other up by the ankle. She can feel the sweat start to prickle her scalp. God, by the end of this session she'd be sweating, something she avoids as much as possible. She looks over and Eliot is sitting cross-legged, doing something that looks like he's bending his hand in a way it's not supposed to go. And that only serves to make her notice how nice Eliot's forearms are, and his hands, too, and...oh, damn.

How completely impossible, to be flustered by Eliot this way. A thousand cons with him as the reassuring backup, the person who would always, always get them to safety, and she never turned a hair; now, alone with him in this grubby environment, she's fighting to keep a blush from rising to her cheeks. Maybe she's just displacing her rage with Nate. No...it was definitely Eliot's magnificent ass in those pants that was responsible for these thoughts.

He does a few casual pushups, and when he looks up, she's still staring at him with a completely bemused expression. He frowns at her and barks, "So ya gonna stretch out, or what? You work out without stretching, you're gonna tear something."

She obediently works through a few more yoga moves, stretching out her back and shoulders, then back to her hamstrings. Her feet make little squeaky sounds on the mat and she watches herself in the mirrors that line the room. She looks so utterly out of place in this room, somewhere in the back of one of Eliot's sports clubs. Expecting something like a boxing gym, she had asked him a couple of questions, and gotten only more mystified by his response. "It's not a gym. Not a dojo, either, not really. No kamidana, I won't make you bow in or anything. It's fine for our purposes. I'm not a sensai, and we're just teaching you some basic self-defense. Wear something you can move in."

She had understood approximately one word in three of that speech, but had shrugged it off. From what she could tell, it mostly meant that she wasn't going to be expected to do all of the ultra-formal things she had knew vaguely went with martial arts - a brief memory of attendance at a judo competition during the Olympics in Seoul swims up to the surface - but at that point she had been more interested in the member of the IOC she was charming and paying less attention to the pairs grappling on the mat below her.

Eliot finishes his stretches and walks over to stand by her. She turns and does her best to look alert - maybe if she's a good student this entire strange ordeal will be over with that much the sooner. Eliot clears his throat, and begins explaining.

"So, it's probably not a good idea to give you lessons on self defense that rely on brute strength. Nothing where you have to punch somebody through the wall, or kick them in the head. So I'm going to teach you a few aikido moves. Lots of ways to use your opponent's strength against them. Should come easy to a grifter, yeah?" He grins at her, letting her know he's deliberately picking on her.

Sophie mock-frowns in response. "That's a cheap shot, Eliot. Come on, let's get this over with."

"This isn't something you can learn in one class, Soph. We're going to have to do this multiple times, get it into your muscle memory." At her groan, he chuckles. "Whassa matter, scared you might learn something new?"

"Oh, for crying out loud. Fine, I'll stop complaining if you stop throwing bad cliches at me."

They train for about an hour. With a little encouragement, she begins to see the basic mechanics of it all - how to take a person gripping her wrist, pivot neatly, and force the attacker to the mat, all with a little pressure carefully applied. Kneeling over Eliot's prone form, she tucks one knee into his armpit so he can't free himself easily, bends his hand backwards ninety degrees (ah, she realizes, the reason for stretching out the wrists earlier) and presses down where he's showed her, releasing him as soon as he taps out. Another move has her locking his elbow up behind his own head, off-balance and on his toes until she steps forward and throws him to the floor. It's surprisingly exhilarating. By the time Eliot calls an end to the class, Sophie has sweaty hair plastered to her face and is breathing hard, but can't hide a little surge of pride that she has managed the day so well.

"You know, I can't believe it but I think I enjoyed that." She's sitting on the mat, trying to get her wind back.

Eliot chuckled. "I figured that out when you got me in a hold and then giggled. I don't know that I've heard you actually giggle before. Didn't figure you for the type."

"Yes, well," Sophie bit back a wave of embarrassment. "I'm not used to being physical like that, you know. I have to talk my way out of trouble, not punch. Generally, if it gets to the point where I need to hit somebody, I've failed."

"Sometimes talking is overrated. And sometimes - well, Atlanta went wrong in a couple of bad ways that mostly had to do with luck, not skill. You need to know how to break loose and run for it. To be able to get away from somebody who's trying to grab you." He stands, stripping his sweaty t-shirt over his head. "See you tomorrow, same time." He saunters off, leaving her with the view of his bare back. It's a lovely back, really. Broad shoulders that taper perfectly to a narrow waist, those white pants stark against his tan...why was thinking this sort of thing about Eliot a bad idea, again? Under her breath, she murmurs, "There is something to be said for brute physicality, I suppose."

******

Things continue in much the same vein for the next three months, punctuated by a week-long break in training while they wrap up a job in Boston that goes, against all expectations, very sweetly and with minimal fuss. Sophie one day finds herself deflecting an attacking Eliot in a matter of seconds, pinning him to the ground and putting him in an arm lock without even realizing that she's doing it - she just reacts like she's supposed to. Without either of them saying anything about it, the training continues, past the quick lessons in self-defense into something more meaningful. A few moves from other disciplines get worked in, but Sophie seems to have the most affinity for aikido, with the way it feels like waves and spirals. She won't lie - the close contact with Eliot is not a bad thing either. She never would have considered the smell of honest sweat erotic, but now...remembering the way it felt to tuck Eliot's head against her shoulder and inhale the sweet-sharp tang of the sweat on his skin just before she pivots and tosses him across the mats...well, let's just say that there were a great many things in Sophie's life she was reevaluating. Fighting as foreplay had never been her favorite action movie cliche, but she was beginning to see its attractions.

Finally, seven months after it all began, she finds herself pinned under a bare-chested Eliot, his face half an inch away from hers. Well, she's always been good about knowing when the right moment was upon her. She throws caution to the wind, and arches up into him, her mouth on his.

He's startled, and rolls off her awkwardly, but she was expecting that and follows him over, straddling him easily. He blurts out, "Soph, are you...what...are you actually..." and she rolls her eyes and stifles him by bending over and kissing him again. After a frantic second she feels him kiss back, and god, it's everything she hoped it would be, heat and softness and his tongue against hers. He pulls back again, asks, "Is this ok?" and she hears a thousand questions tied up in that simple one.

"It's ok," she breathes against his cheek, and with that permission he slides his hands down her sweaty back, pulls her close against him on the mat, and kisses her like he's been training all his life for it. She slides her hands down the slickness of his chest, making him gasp and tense under her, and then tries to unknot the ties of his gi pants. They're damp and she can't for the life of her get them undone. He pushes her hands away, laughing, and tugs the knot free, helping her loosen them, and takes the opportunity to strip off her t-shirt, revealing the much-despised sports bra. Sophie makes a wry face as he smiles at her, running his hand down the side of her breast and along the curve of her waist.

"I'll have you know my usual lingerie is far sexier than this horrible rig."

He tips her backwards and runs kisses along the neckline of the bra, mumbling, "No, l like it, this suits you," into her cleavage. She snorts with laughter, and he presses his advantage by sucking her nipples through the fabric of her bra, making her cry out because his mouth feels so very good.

With some difficulty and a lot of assistance from Sophie, they manage to get her sports bra peeled off of her, and then, with entirely less fuss, her yoga pants and the utilitarian white cotton panties underneath. He's still fully clothed, which Sophie finds magnificently unfair, and she points this out to him. "I'm not going to be the only naked one in this room, you know. Fair's fair."

"Let's finish the job you started, then." With a few tugs, the gi pants finally loosen completely, and fall around his ankles. He steps out of them, now wearing only a pair of elderly boxer-briefs, the sight of which send Sophie into helpless giggles. "Eliot, you can't possibly go around in those tatty old things...didn't your mother ever tell you to wear good underwear in case you were hit by a car?"

"My mom had very little to say on the topic of my undershorts, Soph. But if you object to them, I'll just remove them." He makes a mock-ceremony out of it, tugging them down slowly and dodging a couple of attempts by Sophie to hurry the process along. But just when he sinks down next to her, he curses under his breath. "Sophie, I don't...I didn't expect to need anything when I headed out for the day."

She gives him her best roguish smile, and points to her gym bag lying against the wall. "Let's say I had some idea where this day might take us."

"Devil-woman. Do all grifters drag you into their own sinful ways?" He staggers over to the gym bag as she howls with laughter.

"I'm the sinful one? Who threw us together day after day, where we had to wrestle and touch each other everywhere, and sweat all over each other and throw each other around the room? You're the one who led me astray, you bastard!" By the end of her speech he's back with her, ripping at the condom's foil wrapper. She tries to help, and they fumble it on somehow, although it's a miracle they don't shred the thing by accident. Then he's above her, and she's wrapping her arms around those shoulders she's admired since the first day they trained together, and his hips drive forward and finally, finally, he's inside her and it's so good.

She wraps her legs around his waist and rocks up to meet him. He's got his hands tight on her ass, and her face is pressed against his chest and she can't see anything, all she can do is feel him and smell him, the smell of his skin that she's learned over the months and months they've met in this crappy little room to throw each other around. She gasps out loud with how good it is, saying his name although her voice is muffled against his skin, but he hears her and thrusts forward more ferociously and she comes, crying out nonsense words as she quivers and shakes. A handful of seconds and he follows suit, growling against her neck, his body trembling against hers.

The only sound in the small room for the next few minutes is a gentle panting. Sophie scooches over and tucks herself against Eliot, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and he curls his arm around her, pressing her close. Another few quiet moments pass.

"Eliot?"

"Yes, Soph?"

"If you don't get me to a hot shower in the next ten minutes, I'm going to start crying."

"Did I tell you I'm a silent partner here? Let me show you the private bathroom. I think you'll appreciate it. Got one of those multi-jet shower thingies..."

"You are a man of many miracles."

He helps her to her feet and they stagger off the mats together.

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, I am plumbing my own erotic dictionary for fic material. Fighting as foreplay - always a plus in my book!


End file.
